Creating and Editing Activities

An Activity is created any time you would like your students to see, edit or create a chart in EHR Tutor. Activities can only be created in the Activity Library or within a course. If this is your first time using EHR Tutor and you have not yet created a course, you can view our Instructor Quick Start Guide or Instructor Orientation Video to review the initial setup process.

Create an Activity To create an Activity, click into the Courses option on the left hand navigation list. Then, click Go to Course next to the appropriate course.

On the Activities page, click the Create New Activity button.

Fill out the form that pops up and then click the blue Save button to save the activity. Explanations for each field can be found below:

Activity Type- Select either Individual Patient or Shared Patient. If you want your students to have their own copy of the patient chart for individual charting, keep Individual Patient selected. This is the most frequently used setting. To learn the differences between Individual Patients and Shared see the table below.

Differences between Shared and Individual Patient Charts

Shared Patients

Individual Patients

All students in the course use the same copy of a particular patient and chart.

All students in the course have their own separate copy of a particular patient and chart.

All students in the course are able to chart and edit their own charting on the shared patient chart.

Students will be able to chart and edit charting only on their own individual copy of the patient chart.

Students will be able to view all charting done by all students on the single Shared Patient chart.

Students cannot view charting done by other students on the patient chart.

Instructors can identify a specific student’s charting on the shared chart only by the initials of the student recorded at the top of the documentation columns.

Instructors can continue to add documentation such as orders, notes, vital signs, etc. at any time and it will be visible to students. This is especially useful for dynamic simulation lab activities.

Instructors cannot add any new documentation to a student’s separate patient chart after the student first opens an Individual Patient activity. (That is when a separate copy of the patient chart is created for each student.)

Activity Name- Enter a name that will help you remember the purpose of the activity. This is visible to students.

Instructions to Student- Describe what your students are expected to do for this activity. You can put simple directions, link to outside resources or embed images/videos for students to view.

Activity Description- Students do not see this field. Use this for your own notes related to this activity (ex- when to use, how to set up, etc.). Activities can be copied in to future courses, making this a good place to remind yourself when and how you used this activity.

Due Before- Enter a due date and time for students if desired. Format is 01/01/2000 2300. This due date will be displayed next to the activity name for your students to see.

Do not allow student charting after due date- If this checkbox is checked, the student will not be able to add new documentation or edit the chart after the due date. After the due date and time, students can continue to see the activity name and any grades or comments.If the instructor wants the students to review and fix their original work after the due date, the instructor must come back and uncheck this box.

Students Create Patient- Selecting this checkbox requires students to create their own patient charts starting with a completely empty electronic health record. Students will see a New Inpatient chart button when they open the activity instead of a patient name. One situation in which this may be used is for the students’ clinical experiences with real patients in which students will add patient data to a chart they create without using the real patient’s name or any identifiers matching the real patient.

Keep in mind that Protected Health Information (PHI) for a real patient should never be entered into an academic EHR!

Visible to Student- This box must be checked for the activity to be visible to your students. This setting is also important because the first time a student opens a patient chart the charting dates are automatically shifted forward to be made current at that exact date.If you want to make sure dates are the same for all students and current when your students start an assigned activity, you can change the activity setting to Visible on the day you want students to start an activity, and not before.

Add Patient- This button opens the list of patients that you can add to your activity from the Patient Chart Library. This will include the patient charts provided by EHR Tutor, any patient charts that you have created, and patient charts created by other instructors at your school. From the, click the desired chart to add to the activity. The added patient chart appears at the bottom of the Edit Activity page.

Edit or Delete an Activity

To create an Activity, click into the Courses option on the left hand navigation list. Then, click Go to Course next to the appropriate course.

The list of Activities for that course will appear. Next to the appropriate Activity, you can use the buttons to Edit, View or Delete the Activity.